Total Recall (1990)
Synopsis :
The story is set in the year 2084. Douglas Quaid is a construction worker who has been experiencing dreams about exploring the planet Mars with a brunette. After seeing an ad from Rekall, a company that sells imaginary adventures by implanting false memories, he decides to buy a “vacation” on Mars from them, one in which he will take a vacation from himself by becoming a spy. Rekall calls it an “ego trip.” Before buying the vacation, Quaid is cautioned by a co-worker that Rekall is risky, and a memory implant failure “lobotomizes people,” in reference to failed memory implants which caused the recipients to suffer permanent brain damage. Quaid hesitates, but disregards this warning.
After the procedure starts, Quaid has a violent outburst and tries to break free, yelling incoherently that his cover has been blown and about people who are coming to kill him. At first, it seems as though he was merely acting out the “spy” portion of the memory implant; however, when it’s confirmed that they hadn’t implanted the memories yet, the doctors at Rekall realize that they are real memories, and someone else had previously erased his memory. After being subdued with difficulty, Quaid is returned home with no memories of ever going to Rekall, but then he is attacked by his friends and even his wife, Lori. She tells him that everything he remembers, including their marriage, is false; memories implanted less than two months before. While evading his assailants, he receives a phone call from someone claiming to be a former friend of his who had been asked to deliver a briefcase if he ever disappeared. The briefcase contains fake IDs, money, weapons, devices, and a video player, containing a video disk he left to himself beforehand. Watching it, Quaid starts piecing together his past on Mars as a secret agent named Hauser who worked for Mars administrator Vilos Cohaagen as a Mars Intelligence agent. Pursued by Richter, a man working for Cohaagen, Quaid travels to Mars to discover the truth.
On Mars, Quaid finds out that Cohaagen rules an airtight city via his monopoly of air production, and that the poor workers in the city’s slums have been turned into mutants from living within cheaply-produced domes that do not adequately protect against cosmic rays, which the thin atmosphere of Mars cannot block. He soon makes several allies, a cabbie named Benny and the woman from his dreams, Melina.
Quaid is later confronted by Lori and Dr. Edgemar, the man from the Rekall commercials, who try to convince him that the adventure he has been having, his experiences to this point and his future as the leader of mutant resistance have been part of the “vacation” he bought at Rekall. Quaid is now trapped in the ego trip and needs to let them help him recuperate from his paranoia episode. Edgemar offers him a pill to wake up to the truth, the alternative being lobotomization, since he’s still hallucinating in the Rekall facilities. Quaid is almost convinced until he notices that the doctor is sweating with anxiety. Quaid shoots the doctor in the head, before a group of hitmen storm the room and capture him. Melina arrives shortly after and shoots the hitmen, killing them all, but is then disarmed by Lori. The two engage in a vicious fight. Quaid recovers and shoots Lori, killing her in self-defense.
Melina and Quaid flee and eventually meet resistance leader Kuato, who is revealed to be a mutant growing out of his own brother’s abdomen. With Kuato’s psychic help, Quaid sees a mysterious alien machine in the Martian mines, but then Cohaagen’s forces storm the resistance hideout. Kuato is killed and Quaid and Melina are captured, with the help of Benny, who is actually a traitor. Cohaagen then reveals that Hauser willingly had his mind wiped in order to gain Kuato’s trust; this is the only way the mutant psychics could be fooled. The whole incident, with the exception of Richter’s maniacal pursuit of Quaid and Quaid’s activation at Rekall, was planned. To convince Quaid that this is true, Cohaagen provides another video that Quaid’s alter ego, Hauser, left for himself. Cohaagen reveals that he has decided to eliminate the rebels by cutting off the air supply to their section of the city. He orders Quaid’s mind to be restored to Hauser’s and Melina’s mind be altered to be subservient to Quaid.
Knowing how evil Hauser truly is, Quaid refuses to go back, and manages to escape with Melina. They hurry to reach the alien machine and activate it. After killing Benny, Quaid runs into Richter, fights him on top of an elevator, and finally defeats him when Richter’s arms are severed. Richter then falls to his doom. Quaid activates the machine over Cohaagen’s protests that it will destroy the planet. In the struggle to activate the machine, Cohaagen is ejected onto the nearly airless surface of Mars, where he dies of asphyxiation and decompression. Quaid and Melina almost die from exposure to the atmosphere as well, but the alien machine creates a breathable atmosphere that saves them and the mutants just in time to see a blue sky over Mars.
As Melina says that it is like a dream, Quaid wonders if the whole thing has been real or if he is still in an implanted fantasy. Melina replies “Then kiss me quick before you wake up.” Just as they kiss each other, a bright flash of white light illuminates the screen, and the credits roll.
Starring :
Arnold Schwarzenegger … Douglas Quaid / Hauser
Rachel Ticotin … Melina
Sharon Stone … Lori
Ronny Cox … Vilos Cohaagen
Michael Ironside … Richter
Marshall Bell … George / Kuato
Mel Johnson Jr. … Benny
Michael Champion … Helm
Roy Brocksmith … Dr. Edgemar
Ray Baker … Bob McClane
Rosemary Dunsmore … Dr. Lull
David Knell … Ernie
Alexia Robinson … Tiffany
Dean Norris … Tony
Mark Carlton … Bartender
Director :
Paul Verhoeven
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